Richard B. Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute (Courtesy of the National Policy Institute)

In the face of growing diversity in America, the National Policy Institute is working to create an intellectual class of white separatists, Lauren M. Fox writes in an illuminating piece at Salon.

Richard Spencer sat sipping his chai latte at the Red Caboose, a train-themed coffee shop in downtown Whitefish, Mont. Clean-cut and restrained, he reminded me of a hundred outdoors-obsessed people I had known growing up here in the Flathead Valley, a resort area nestled in the shadows of Glacier National Park.

But Spencer's tidy appearance is about more than his sense of propriety; it's a recruitment tool. Spencer advocates for white separatism and he wants to shake his movement's reputation for brutality and backwardness…

Under the auspices of his blandly named National Policy Institute, Spencer is working to create an intellectual class of white separatists. The organization's editorial unit publishes "scientifically-based" books like "Race Differences in Intelligence" and "The Perils of Diversity." The group rejects the calls for violence, which appear in Internet chat rooms and public campaigns of hate. Spencer prefers a more professorial approach of publishing books and organizing conferences. "Our goal is to form an intellectual community around European nationalism," he wrote in an email.

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